Papias,
Certainly the Bible does include some poetic speech. The difference is that Genesis 2:4 is very specific that it is a historical account and therefore cannot reasonably be reinterpreted as "simply poetic speech".
When people remember their history in poetry (as most ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, did) then there is no reason to divide history from poetic speech.
Regarding evolution, there is conflicting evidence.
Conflicting evidence about what? There is certainly no conflicting evidence about the fact that evolution happens and has happened for as long as there has been life on earth. You may have been told otherwise, but that just means your teachers are in error too.
Sure there is evidence that is ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways---but this is only the case with fine details about how a certain species evolved---not about the theory of evolution.
You certainly are free to choose what facts to believe
No, as Christians we are not free to choose which facts to believe. We are required to believe all facts. Not to believe a fact is to choose a lie over truth.
You may choose what scientists and theologians to believe, but since not all theologians have the same beliefs, obviously some are wrong. (...unless you subscribe to the "all roads lead to God" theory which is antibiblical.)
That's better. We can choose which teachers to believe and since they do not agree, obviously some are wrong. So we need to be ready to check out what they teach against the facts.
I freely admit I don't know how a solid Christian faith is built upon theistic evolution. It seems to me to indicate God is incapable of clearly communicating to those he... uh... "created".
Well, this is where you simply need to learn more about theistic evolution. You are making assumptions about it that are incorrect.
God is very capable of communicating clearly to people of every generation, but to do so, God chooses to accommodate himself to their level of knowledge--just as we use simple terms to explain something to a child or a person who has little educational background in a specialized field. So God did not, for example, communicate clearly that the earth orbits the sun. In fact, he allowed the Psalmists to write plainly that the earth does not move and cannot be shaken from its foundations. (except by God himself, of course.) Nor did God every communicate clearly that disease is often caused by living organisms to small to see without a microscope. That wouldn't make much sense to people who had never seen a microscope and had never heard of microorganisms. We, who stand on the other side of the inventions of the telescope and microscope have learned how to accommodate the language of scripture to the knowledge we have gained through them. Theistic evolutionists do the same with the creation accounts.
Accepting theistic evolution is believing the "almighty" hand of God must simply wait for billions of years for something to occur naturalistically, He isn't powerful enough to simply create everything in 6 days.
No, it has nothing to do with God's power, what God can and cannot do. It is more about using the evidence to figure out what God did do. We can all agree that he could have done things differently. He wasn't trapped into doing what he did because he couldn't do otherwise.
You are assuming it takes more power to create everything in 6 days than over billions of years. Why?
And what about "naturalistically"? I have the impression that when you think of things happening "naturalistically" you think God has to sit back and wait for them to happen rather than making them happen. But is it not God who makes things happen naturalistically as well as supernaturalistically? Jesus certainly seemed to think so. When he spoke of the farmer planting grain in the field, it was the farmer who sat back while the seed sprouted and grew, "he knows not how" until it was time to harvest. But was Jesus saying that while the man waited God did nothing? Isn't it God who makes the seed sprout and the plant grow naturalistically?
Things happen naturalistically because God chooses to make them happen that way, not because he is twiddling his thumbs waiting for something to happen. What would ever happen naturalistically without God? Nothing, that's what.
Be very careful about buying into the idea that "naturalistic" excludes God. That may be what Deists and/or atheists think, but it's not good Christian teaching. Naturalistically simply describes one way God is actively involved in nature. So it is never a matter of God having to wait for nature to produce something. It is more like God having the patience to encourage nature to produce what he desires. Like nurturing a flame from a smouldering wick instead of putting it out.
I am interested in knowing what faith in theistic evolution is and how one can hold to that faith without substantially diminishing the gospel message. I don't see how such faith could avoid leading to redefining who God is, what sin is, how sin has separated us from God, how God provided a means of forgiveness through the messiah, eternal life, etc.
Actually, I don't see that the theory of evolution has much to do with any of that. After all, those things are all about humans who are already human. The theory of human evolution is about how our ancestors became human (in a physical sense). So that all happens before anything scripture teaches us about ourselves took place. Certainly everything about sin and salvation is a human affair, a matter of how humans became alienated from God through sin and how God has provided forgiveness and salvation for us. Our evolutionary origins don't have any effect on that at all.
So what is left? Redefining God? In what way? Why? I don't see that I need to redefine God because of our evolutionary past. Perhaps you can explain why you think this is necessary.
What is God? Is he able do miracles, or are those all poetic speech as well? Was the crucifixion poetic or real? What about Jesus' resurrection? Is salvation merely poetic?
Of course God is able to do miracles, just as God is able to accomplish his purposes through naturalistic means. I don't think I have ever heard a theistic evolutionist deny that God works miracles. Yet it often seems that people who emphasize that God works miracles think that God never works naturalistically. Can we not agree that God does both as God sees fit?
Is there a difference between being poetic and real? Can we not speak of reality poetically? Of course we can. How often do we speak of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ in our hymns--a form of poetry. It is false to separate poetry and reality when they often belong together.
If your question is "Did Pilate-a person known to history-on a particular historical day, order the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth?" the answer of any Christian will be "Yes" no matter what they think about evolution. Did Jesus rise from the dead? If you believe the apostles, (and what Christian does not) then the answer to that is "Yes" as well. Furthermore, many Christians testify to the living presence of Christ in their life, and that has no relation to what they believe about evolution either.
I guess one of the things I am trying to convey is that a large part of theistic evolution is realizing that evolution doesn't mean much one way or another in being a Christian. There is virtually nothing in the bible or in Christian doctrine that is affected one way or another by the fact of evolution.
FYI, in most cases creationist Churches are teaching the bible according to the clearest, most obvious understanding of the text, and not reinterpreting our beliefs by modern ideas.
Actually, what you just described is very much a matter of interpreting the text in line with modern ideas. What, for example, do you mean by "the clearest, most obvious understanding of the text"?
It is probably not at all what the biblical authors and their audience thought say 2500 years ago. It is not, in many cases, what the Church Fathers thought.
The very notion of "clear, obvious ideas" is rooted in the philosophy of Descartes, the father of modernism. And using that as a criterion means reinterpreting an ancient text along the lines of modern ideas.
Yep, good point. The reverse is ironic too - that many creationists take "this is my body" symbollically, and criticize Catholics for being "too literal", then turn around and insist that Genesis 1:6, say, be read literally (even while seeing other parts of Genesis figuratively)!
